Remember When Obama Took The Guns?

[GMDino]

To tie in with Obama taking all the guns:

One of my conservative friends posts a meme  FB about all the Chicago murders despite having "the strictest gun laws".  I was reminded of this article:


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/10/28/lax-indiana-gun-laws/74740388/

Quote:Is Indiana to blame for Chicago's gun violence?


INDIANAPOLIS — When President Barack Obama suggested that Indiana and other states with few gun restrictions are to blame for Chicago’s homicide problem, it rankled GOP leaders here.

The brief mention in the president’s nearly hourlong speech, which also included calls for criminal justice reforms and additional resources for police, came Tuesday during a national gathering of police chiefs in Chicago. Supporters of gun rights have cited the frequent shootings as evidence that strict gun laws, such as those in Chicago, don’t work.

“Blaming Chicago’s crime problems on Indiana is unfortunate and inaccurate,” said Matt Lloyd, a spokesman for Republican Gov. Mike Pence.

Chicago police have long complained about a steady stream of illegal firearms from neighboring Indiana, where gun control laws are much weaker.
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“There are those who criticize any gun safety reforms by pointing to my hometown as an example,” Obama said. “The problem with that argument, as the Chicago Police Department will tell you, is that 60% of guns recovered in crimes come from out of state. You’ve just got to hop across the border.”

A report from Chicago authorities found that nearly 60% of illegal guns recovered in the city from 2009 to 2013 were first sold in states with more lax gun laws. 
The largest portion came from Indiana, which accounted for 19% of the illegal guns in Chicago.

“Blaming Chicago’s crime problems on Indiana is unfortunate and inaccurate.”
Matt Lloyd, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence's office

The report blames Indiana’s lax gun laws, which allow gun owners to sell their weapons to other people without background checks or paperwork recording the sale.

“This makes it incredibly easy for gun traffickers, violent offenders and other prohibited purchasers to buy guns undetected,” the report said.

However, Indiana lawmakers have shown no appetite for tougher gun laws.

While Chicago’s homicide count grew to nearly 400 so far this year, the Indiana legislature, where Republicans enjoy supermajorities, has rolled back restrictions.

Just this year, lawmakers repealed a prohibition on manufactured sawed-off shotguns and passed a law intended to inoculate gun manufacturers from an ongoing lawsuit filed by the city of Gary, about 30 miles southeast of Chicago in northwest Indiana. Those changes come on the heels of a measure last year allowing adults to keep guns locked in their vehicles in school parking lots.

State Sen. Jim Tomes, a Wadesville Republican who authored the two most recent measures, called Obama’s comments “absolutely ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t matter where the guns come from,” he said. “It’s a societal problem in Chicago. … I don’t know what in the world Indiana could have to do with their inability to deal with their criminal activity.”

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Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, a Democrat who supports universal background checks and stronger rules for gun shows and sales, acknowledged that pushing for such laws in gun-friendly Indiana likely is impossible.

After all, this is a state where Indianapolis restaurant Papa Roux reacted to a robbery of its store this week by offering discounts to patrons if they showed a gun-carrying permit. The promotion drew huge crowds of gun-toting customers.

“The fact that you say you have to be 18 to drink is not an infringement on the 21st Amendment. It’s just the fact that in a society, in a civilized society, you need some types of rules and regulations.”
Karen Freeman-Wilson, Gary, Ind., mayor

But Freeman-Wilson, a former Indiana attorney general, said common-sense reforms don’t infringe on Second Amendment rights.

“The fact that you say you have to be 18 to drink is not an infringement on the 21st Amendment,” she said. “It’s just the fact that in a society, in a civilized society, you need some types of rules and regulations. And that’s all it would be.”

But the National Rifle Association said the Obama administration should concentrate on enforcing current laws, not creating new ones.

The organization, which wields considerable influence in Indiana, highlighted a Chicago Sun-Times article that found felons who illegally possess a gun in Chicago typically receive sentences on the low end of state sentencing guidelines. The group also said federal weapons convictions have declined nearly 35% in the past 10 years.

“If the president held a press conference tomorrow morning and directed every federal jurisdiction to round up every felon with a gun, drug dealer with a gun and criminal gangbanger with a gun, law enforcement would have thousands of violent thugs in handcuffs and squad cars by sundown,” said Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, in a video response to Obama’s speech.

Troy Riggs, the former director of public safety for Indianapolis who now runs a public safety outreach program at Indiana University’s Public Policy Institute, said he welcomes national conversations about how to address gun violence, though he added that any successful efforts would have to focus on comprehensive, long-term strategies for abating crime.

“It’s not as simple as just banning weapons,” Riggs said. “I see nothing that tells me that a national ban or a national approach is going to significantly reduce gun-crime violence overnight. Remember, we have 300-plus million firearms in the United States of America. They’re not going to vanish overnight.”

Murders, shootings on the rise in Chicago

Chief Rick Hite of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, said he thinks stemming violent criminals' use of illegal guns is possible without infringing on the Second Amendment rights of responsible gun owners.

With individuals who aren’t legally allowed to carry guns or are serious violent felons, “shouldn’t we have harsher penalties relative to the acts they commit?” Hite asked.

Hite and other city officials long have advocated for mandatory minimum sentences for those who commit violent, gun-related crimes. Hite said he remains confident such measures would reduce criminal activity here, where homicides reached 116 earlier this month, outpacing last year’s recent high.

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An Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department study that examined homicides committed through the first half of 2014 found that up to 24% of those homicides would not have happened if the suspect or victim had been serving longer sentences for previous crimes.

“Obviously, they made it very clear that violence is part of their business, and they plan to continue engaging in those activities until we in the community make it clear it’s unacceptable,” Hite said.

Indiana bill targets lawsuit against gun maker

Indiana lawmakers recently overhauled the state’s criminal code in an effort to reduce prison time for nonviolent offenders while requiring violent felons to serve a larger portion of their sentences.

It’s one area where Obama and Hoosier lawmakers might find some agreement.

“It is possible for us to come up with strategies that effectively reduce the damage of the drug trade without relying solely on incarceration,” Obama said. “States from Texas to South Carolina to California and Connecticut have already reduced their prison populations over the last five years and seen their crime rates fall.”
[url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/18/mom-launches-gun-control-crusade/1776929/]

Ind. mom launches online crusade for gun control

But Obama said he doesn’t think those measures alone are enough.

“I refuse to accept the notion that we couldn’t have prevented some of those murders, some of those suicides, kept more families whole, protected more officers if we had passed some common-sense laws,” he said.